After a break of eight months, nuclear talks between Iran and six world powers got going again today, this time in a hotel in Almaty, Kazakhstan. They started late, after the Iranians asked for time to pray in the morning, and opened with a plenary sessions with top diplomats from Iran, US, UK, France, Germany, Russia and China.

In that meeting, the EU head of foreign policy, Cathy Ashton, acting as a convener of the six-nation negotiating group, handed the Iranians the latest offer from the international community in return for Iran accepting curbs on its nuclear programme. It has not been confirmed whether the offer included a reported relaxation of new restrictions on Iran's trade in gold and precious metals. European diplomats have described the offer as a 'confidence-building measure', rather than any kind of grand bargain, and said more details would be forthcoming in the next few hours.

The Iranians took the offer away to study, and presumably relay back to Tehran. Laura Rozen of Al-Monitor, who is in Almaty, spoke to an Iranian official who appeared tentatively positive and said that: "Both sides agree on which part to solve right now" as a first step - an apparent reference to Iran's production of 20%-enriched uranium, the main proliferation concern.

However, the official suggested Iran was not being offered enough for what Iran is being asked to do: to stop 20% production, ship the existing stockpile out of the country and close down the underground enrichment plant at Fordow.

At least this sounds like a negotiation, rather than a dialogue of the deaf like the previous meeting in Moscow last June. The official who talked to Laura suggested the favoured outcome would be more meetings on a technical level, which could at least keep dialogue going, and the can duly kicked down the road, until the Iranian presidential elections in June, in which Saeed Jalili, the head of Tehran's delegation in Almaty, is being touted as a possible candidate.

The talks are wrapping up for the day in freezing Kazakhstan (which claims to be the birthplace of the apple, tulip, and even more controversially, trousers) after a few bilateral meetings, in which the British, Germans and Russians reportedly had private words with the Iranian delegation. So far, not a disaster.